


he has done terrible things

by Lise



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: (Ish) - Freeform, Blood and Injury, Brief Canon Divergence But Mostly Canon Compliant, Episode Related, Episode: s02e06 Monster, Gen, Gunshot Wounds, Hurt Lucifer, Hurt/Comfort, Snappy Narration, Suicide Attempt, new fandom who dis, tags I'm forgetting probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-29
Updated: 2016-12-29
Packaged: 2018-09-13 05:38:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9108886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lise/pseuds/Lise
Summary: The thing about trying to get yourself shot is that sometimes youactually get yourself shot.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm doing it, I'm writing in a new fandom, wow, been a while. (Actually though, I don't think I've picked up a new fandom in...literal years.) I forgot how scary it is.
> 
> But hey, I watched all of Lucifer in about two weeks, fell totally in love, and ended up with a small pile of fic ideas for it - so here's my first one, hot (ish) off the presses. It's not that I have a character type of "dysfunctional assholes with a tendency to be bad at feelings and cavalier about their personal health and safety" except oh wait, I totally do.

The last time he’d done something like this, Amenadiel had swooped in for one of those holy eleventh-hour miracle rescues. Of course that wasn’t going to happen this time, given that Amenadiel wasn’t _swooping_ anywhere, properly fallen as he was, and Lucifer doubted there was any other heavenly aid on the way.

Which raised an interesting question, really: what happened if he _did_ die (again), would that mean Chloe was or wasn’t protected, would the deal he’d made be null and void or-

Another shot pinged off the counter to his left and Susan Chang squeaked. “Come _on,_ ” he shouted. “I’m right _here,_ you idiot!”

The fact was, Lucifer wasn’t entirely certain what he was doing here. All to the good, perhaps, not thinking things through, except wasn’t that what had caused this _mess_ in the first place (he hadn’t been thinking whe n he’d - _done it_ , not really)? Did it count as _suicide_ if the _plan_ wasn’t there? Uriel would probably have something to say about _patterns_ and _probabilities,_ if he were here-

(he wasn’t.)

This time he actually felt the heat off the bullet zinging past his face. “Closer! You’re shooting at _me,_ not her, remember?” He could just barely see the Detective out of the corner of his eye. Working her way toward the shooter. Timing should be about right if this supposed marksman stopped playing games-

Perhaps he read Lucifer’s mind just then, because he stopped playing games.

He always forgot how much mortal injuries _hurt._ The force knocked him back like a punch to the shoulder. A punch that was also a knife, one of Maze’s knives, the nasty ones; Lucifer intended to catch himself on the coffee stand but his entire arm had gone momentarily numb. “Oh god,” Ms. Chang said, somewhere between using his suddenly off balance body as a shield and trying to keep him standing, and Lucifer heard himself say “oh, please, can we not bring _him_ into it?”

It took another moment to realize that it wasn’t just that it hurt - nasty, throbbing pain, not even the fun kind, he _knew_ the fun kind - but he was also bleeding. Quite a bit, really. Which _had_ been the intention, but now that he was actually looking at all the red rapidly departing his body, soaking into his white shirt, trickling down his back, Lucifer’s head spun a little. Or maybe that was the blood loss. It didn’t seem like he should be there _already,_ but maybe there were more large veins in the shoulders than he’d thought. Maze would know.

“I need help!” Ms. Chang was shouting, and Lucifer realized that the tables had turned and he was sitting down against the coffee cart with her looking at him.

“You are going to get yourself shot like that,” he said. She stared at him like he was a little mad. 

“They’ve got the shooter,” she said. “The police officer-”

“Detective,” Lucifer corrected her.

Ms. Chang fluttered a little. She seemed a bit undone, probably because someone had been shooting at her. Or possibly because there was blood on her lab coat. Difficult to say. She leaned forward and stuck her fingers in his leaking shoulder - or that was roughly what it felt like. 

“Oh, ow, that is not-” He tried to push her off, but a sharp voiced, “Lucifer!” caught his attention first. Chloe did not sound pleased, and when she dropped down into view next to Ms. Chang, she didn’t look pleased either. He grinned weakly at her. “Surprise.”

“You unbelievable - let me see.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Ms. Chang said, sounding just barely this side of hysterical. “I’m a _pharmaceutical researcher,_ not a nurse-”

He must have looked as bad as he felt, or possibly worse, because Chloe’s face got paler and her lips thinned. Lucifer raised his eyebrows at her, feeling a little drunk. Also, cold. “Well,” he said. “This is messier than I expected.”

Chloe’s head whipped around and she gave him a look Lucifer couldn’t quite decipher. Detective Douche-Dan - Danielouche? no, too long, no good - was coming down the stairs with their shooter in tow and looking at him with an even odder expression. Lucifer put his head back with a sigh. 

“Oh, no,” Chloe said, voice firm but he could hear a faint tremor underneath. “Oh no you don’t. Lucifer. _Lucifer Morningstar,_ pay _attention_.”

“Detective Decker,” he said, and then forgot what else he’d been meaning to say. 

(This really was very miserable. Also _slow._ )

“EMTs here in five,” said Dan. 

“Move over,” Chloe said, presumably not to him. This part - the weird, floating feeling - he remembered. From the _other_ other time he’d walked in front of a gun. Getting to be a habit, really. 

“Oof,” he said, when Chloe leaned _hard_ on his shoulder, dull pain signals still shooting sluggishly up to his brain. “De _tect_ ive. Getting a wee bit handsy there-”

“Shut up, Lucifer,” Chloe said. He shut up. 

Susan Chang inhaled shakily. “Oh,” she said, but thankfully, _finally,_ unconsciousness took over before he had to hear her finish.

* * *

Grand dramatic gestures, Lucifer decided, didn’t work half as well when you wound up in a hospital bed sporting some extremely uncomfortable hardware. Even the drugs just sort of resulted in an unpleasant, foggy-headed feeling. Unfortunate all around, really.

He reached to pull out at least one of the things sticking into his arm and stopped. Maze looked about as unamused as Maze ever looked, which considering the range of her ability to look unamused, was impressive. 

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” she said. “All kinds of alarms will probably go off.”

“Who let you in here,” Lucifer said, somewhat less than diplomatically. 

“I told them I was your sister.” Lucifer tried not to twitch. 

“Amenadiel was busy, I take it?” 

“Oh, no,” Maze said. “He was here too.” Maze wasn’t sharpening anything, but something about the look on her face made it seem like she should be. “It was fun.”

“I’m sorry to have missed it,” Lucifer said. 

“I bet.” She enunciated the ‘t’ just a little too hard. Lucifer frowned at her, maybe a bit poutily. 

“You’re being snippy,” he accused. 

“What I am being,” Maze said, “is angry. And what you’re being is _stupid._ I’d ask what you were trying to do but it’s obvious you were trying to get yourself killed. And that’s just-”

Someone knocked on the door and Maze stopped talking. Lucifer looked hopefully toward it. “Yes?”

“Lucifer?” said another familiar voice, and oh, that wasn’t any better. Chloe burst through the door almost like she’d kicked it open. She looked at Maze first, and he half expected an explosion, but apparently he had missed something because Maze just sort of nodded and sat back. 

Well. If they were friends now, that was...good. Maybe. 

“Hello, Detective,” he said, summoning a grin and hoping it looked better than it felt. “This really is embarrassing.” 

“Emb-” She looked at Maze again, oddly, and then shook her head hard. “That is not - _you could have died._ You, you _walked in front of an active shooter_ and _yelled at him to shoot you-_ ” 

“I was taking a risk,” Lucifer said. “Trying to draw him out so you could figure out where he was.”

“Bullshit,” Chloe said, jabbing a finger at him with her eyes blazing. “You were - you were doing the same damn thing as you did at Lux with the cops.”

“What thing did he do at Lux,” Maze asked, and maybe it _wasn’t_ good that they were friends. 

“I was fine then and I’m fine now, Detective, so there’s no need to-”

“Lucifer,” Chloe interrupted. “Are you trying to kill yourself?”

“What did he do at Lux with the cops?” Maze asked a little more loudly, and Lucifer was starting to feel distinctly cornered and distinctly like he did not want to be here, doing this, dealing with their _upset._

“So what if I was,” he said in sort of a snarl. “What’s the problem with that? I’d just end up back in Hell anyways-”

He broke off when Maze moved, but she just slumped off the chair, expression unmoving, and walked out the door. He stared after her, not truly surprised. A bitter part of him thought _that is more like it._

Chloe hadn’t moved. She sat down, seemingly torn between strangling him and putting her face in her hands. That, at least, was a familiar expression. “I should tell someone,” she said after a moment. “You should have told me. That you were - at risk.”

He considered feigning ignorance, but the look on Chloe’s face decided him against it. “What would you have done differently? _You_ sent me off home, Detective.” Dismissed. Thrown out. Never mind that he had probably (definitely) deserved it. “ _I_ came back. Just can’t stay away, it seems.” He tried to grin at her, but that was ruined when Chloe _did_ drop her face into her hands. 

“I’m serious, Lucifer,” she said. “I knew something was wrong but I didn’t know it was that bad - I’d have _helped._ ”

 _How,_ Lucifer thought. _How, exactly, would you help? This isn’t exactly the sort of thing that you can fix. Uriel is dead and I killed him._

One line he _hadn’t_ crossed before: shedding the blood of his siblings. Couldn’t say that anymore. 

“Yes, well,” he said eventually. “You couldn’t.”

“Why not?” Chloe challenged. 

“You wouldn’t believe me.”

The detective got that look on her face that said she’d grabbed hold of something and wouldn’t let go of it. “Try me.” 

For a second or so, Lucifer actually considered it. He could lay it all out, explain everything, or sidestep the frustrating circular “metaphor” business by putting it at its most basic: _I killed my brother._ And then what? The law would call for her to arrest him if she believed him. And more than that... 

He did not want Chloe to see him as a murderer. To see him for what he, after all, was.

“No,” he said. “I don’t think so.”

Lucifer was used to expressions of disappointment. Oddly enough, that did not make Chloe’s any easier to bear. “Are you at least talking to someone? Linda, or, or…” she trailed off, plainly a bit lost. “Is this...how long has this been a problem?”

“How long has what been a problem?” Lucifer said, attempting for innocence. Chloe sighed.

“Lucifer...I can’t work with you if I don’t know that you’re safe.”

“Of course I’m not safe,” he said. “I’m the Devil.” She shot him a dark, angry look, and Lucifer put his head back and looked at the ceiling. “I am not trying to die, Detective Decker.”

“Then what _are_ you trying to do? Get my attention? You have it! Ask for help? All you had to do was _ask._ ”

Lucifer felt very tired, which was possibly emotional or possibly because there still wasn’t enough blood in his body. 50/50 chance, probably. “I don’t know.”

“Then you’d better _figure it out,_ ” Chloe snapped. “Because I’m not cut out for watching you almost die a _third_ time.” She stood up sharply, and left. 

Well, Lucifer thought, just a bit bitterly. 

Delightful.

* * *

After Chloe left, naturally Amenadiel had to show up to lecture - and lecture he did, like the eldest son he was. _Selfish,_ he said. _What were you thinking,_ he said. Lucifer wasn’t entirely certain if he was talking about the near death experience or Uriel’s murder. 

Detective Espinoza, to Lucifer’s slight relief, did not put in an appearance. And Maze did not return to glower at him some more, which was both a disappointment and a small mercy. 

His mother also failed to make an appearance, but that was more or less expected. 

Persuading the hospital to let him go home as quickly as he wanted to was fortunately not difficult, and though he held his breath stepping inside, Lux was, thankfully, empty. No concerned well-wishers here. What a relief. 

Within the hour, he realized that it was far too quiet. 

The more he thought about it, the less sense his frankly _stupid_ actions made. What had he thought he was going to achieve? Whose attention had he been trying to get? Not Chloe’s, he didn’t think. 

That was the trouble, wasn’t it? Where did the punisher turn when he needed punishing? That would make it better, surely. Balance the scales. 

_Uriel would still be dead._

Lucifer twitched a shoulder like he could shrug off the thought and poured himself a generous glass of scotch. He was still rebuilding his stash from when Amenadiel had thrown him through the old one - this was one of the few that had managed to survive, by means of its hiding place in the closet, where Maze didn’t tend to look. 

“Should you be drinking with your painkillers?” 

Lucifer set down the glass. “Seeing as I am not taking any, it should be perfectly fine.” He was ever so slightly disappointed that what they had given him was not even anything fun. He’d tried one, in the spirit of experimentation, but it just made him feel vaguely drowsy for ten minutes or so. 

“I wanted to apologize,” Chloe said at length. “For snapping at you. It probably wasn’t the time.” 

Oh, Lucifer thought joylessly. This was going to be one of _those_ conversations. “Apology accepted. Do you want to kiss and make up, too?” He grinned at her. She did not grin back. It’d been worth a try. 

“I’m serious, Lucifer.” 

“And I’m not? My offers are always sincere.” 

Chloe looked like she couldn’t decide whether to laugh or frown. “I mean it, though,” she said. “I _am_ worried about you. You’ve been acting strange for weeks. That thing where you were avoiding me-”

Lucifer pushed his glass away. “Isn’t a problem anymore. My life is not in danger, Detective Decker. I promise you that.” 

Chloe’s shoulders slumped with relief, and there was that uncomfortable, unpleasant feeling again, the one that might be guilt. “That’s...good to hear.” She pulled up the other stool and sat down, finally. “So you _weren’t_ trying to...what _were_ you thinking?” 

“Oh, no,” Lucifer said. “I suppose I was, sort of. The feeling’s passed, though. All better.” 

By the look Chloe gave him, she did not appreciate the reassurance. “Next time you get that ‘feeling,’” she said finally, “I’d appreciate it if you told me before...trying to get yourself shot. I thought - I _actually_ thought you were going to die. Do you know what that’s like?” 

The look of blank surprise on Uriel’s face before the light in his eyes went out. Lucifer managed not to flinch. _Better than you know, Detective._ He tried to look contrite. “Less than enjoyable, I imagine.” 

Chloe grimaced. “That’s an understatement.” 

“I suppose I ought to apologize as well. For alarming you.” 

“Couldn’t hurt.” Chloe leaned her elbows on the bar. “You should apologize to Maze, too. She was...upset.” 

“How much did she break?” Lucifer asked. Chloe laughed, though he hadn’t really been joking.

“Lucifer…” she turned to face him fully. “You’ll talk to your therapist about all this. Right?” 

He opened his mouth to brush the suggestion off, then paused. Linda was...she’d surprised him before. She was good at seeing to the heart of problems and cutting through them. And an outside perspective might be able to offer something he couldn’t see himself. 

Maybe she’d be able to tell him how to stop _feeling_ like...well, this. 

“You know,” he said slowly, “maybe I will.”

Chloe relaxed visibly. Perhaps that shouldn’t please him the way it did. 

He’d accept it, though.


End file.
